36. Cog in a Machine!

I cannot claim to ‘feel’ like a ‘cog in a machine’.
Even by using my wildest imagination, I cannot think that a cog can feel….. I confess that. I am a victim of human arrogance.

Have you ever felt that something is going around you (not necessarily at your back) and you cannot understand its meaning and hence feel either lost or foolish?

Have you ever come across threads and with your Sherlock Holmes type of enthusiasm still been beaten like Dr. Watson?

Have you some or the other time lost the road in a big, crowded, unknown city and panicked?

Have you ever missed a train after reaching station, in a city where you do not have a place to stay and do not know a single person?

Have you experienced a kind of emptiness when you understand that the trust you have put in someone is violated?

Have you felt that people used you for all your goodness and threw you in a dustbin once the task was over? And they come up to you again with all hypocrisy because there is another task that only you will do better, and they forget the wrong they have done to you…

Have you wanted to speak but could never reach to?

Have you faced sudden closure of a till then smooth road? Dead end, with a devil behind you?

Have you grappled with unknown, without any hints, without any idea?

I believe we all have such kind of experiences. The Astrology columns thrive on the human psychology of ‘feeling like a wronged person’. Almost all of you would say ‘yes’ to these questions and you might have recalled the painful moments …. Sorry for that.

I mean all these situations show that life is just normal. These things happen to us and to others, to everyone. Sometimes we are at the ‘receiving’ end and feel all the pain, but sometime we ‘give’ and take pride in that, forgetting how it hurts.

With all such ups and downs in life, I had never felt like a ‘cog in a machine’. I have always been lucky enough to find intrinsic value, joy, satisfaction, fun in whatever I am doing. Even the challenges were charming. Whenever I felt suffocated, I had been courageous enough to change track of life, without feeling guilty, without blaming anyone. I have always taken responsibility of my choices, my actions and its consequences.

But presently I am feeling like a ‘cog in a machine’. I am just one of the many faceless entities, which could be easily replaced, without anyone else ever missing it. The meaninglessness is frightening. I am trapped in a system which has reservations regarding freedom and apathy to sense of fulfillment. I have nobody but myself to blame for taking on series of ‘piecemeal’ works and loosing the broad picture, the goal, the vision and the relentless passion.

I can still decide not to be a cog….and of course not to be a machine! Bigger is not necessarily better. What I feel about myself is important and not how others measure me….

Looking at the positive side of this situation, I know what is wrong, and I know how to make it good. If there is still this little touch of creativity in me, that means after all I am not a cog in a machine! That means nothing is lost.

Hmm… Not bad….